MMORPG: Surviving a Death Game with a Glitched System

Ash had not become stronger than Cross. He had become something Cross could not psychologically process.

And that...

That was a victory.

Proof of Ash’s desperation.

His unwavering commitment to the pinnacle.

***

’Ah, damn. It hurts.’

Ash blinked. Or at least thought he did.

Not that he could tell.

Everything was black, and he felt no resistance against his body. For all he knew, he had stopped only a few inches beneath the surface and was now suspended there, mistaking the complete absence of sensation for an endless fall.

Still, the pain remained.

That...

That definitely didn’t go away.

Nor was it something adrenaline could drown out.

The agony from his severed leg and arm was ever-present. Strangely, however, being submerged in the ground had stemmed the bleeding. Whatever material surrounded him — if it could even be called that — seemed completely impermeable to anything separated from his body. The blood that escaped him could interact with it, but couldn’t pass through. So, it collected at the openings of the wounds until it coagulated unnaturally, forming a barrier that held the remaining blood inside.

It didn’t mean much in the end, seeing as he’d eventually suffocate, but at least he wouldn’t die of blood loss.

’How much time has passed?’

Since Ash was effectively forced to hold his breath perfectly, wasting no oxygen, it appeared he could endure for an inordinate amount of time.

’Dragons are reptilian, right?’

Or at least akin to reptiles.

Some species of reptiles could hold their breath for hours on end. Perhaps he could as well.

Not to mention...

His heart was oddly calm.

It had reflexively slowed.

No, it had not just slowed; it had nearly stalled, falling into the single digits per minute.

Oddly, that also mellowed his thoughts, even through the otherworldly pain.

’Man... I was kind of looking forward to this game.’

Ash was the greatest at Mythic Dominion; there was no debate there. However, viewed differently, he was the greatest only at Mythic Dominion.

Could he really call himself the best when he was merely a specialist?

It wasn’t too much of a stretch to say his place at the top had dulled his desire to push forward because there was nothing left to march toward. At some point, he’d stagnated. He was just so far ahead of everyone else that he mistook his repeated dominance for progress.

’I see... So that’s what you meant, wolf.’

Eventually, when his recognition of that paradox faltered and the difference between progress and the pinnacle blurred, someone with greater tenacity would rise and bring an end to his tyrannical rule.

After all, that destined successor would have a goal to strive for — a benchmark of power against which to measure progress: Ash.

’Just how stagnant have I been these last few years?’

Branching out, changing directives...

It was something Ash needed to do without realizing it.

How else would he have reclaimed his anger and desperation?

The same emotions that had allowed him to rise in the first place.

The same emotions he felt when locked in a white room, staring at his parents’ disapproving gazes through the glass pane. The same ones he felt when he’d first started Mythic Dominion. The same ones he felt the last time he’d seen Clear before his incarceration.

In that sense, Cross and the Seal Sentry had given Ash something he had been missing: a pinnacle worth surpassing.

Then, after he surpassed them...

He’d find something higher. Then something higher still. Then he’d go beyond even that.

He’d never stop striving.

Even as he fell into nothingness, his thoughts remained fixed on rising once again.

After all...

Blood still flowed through his veins.

Air remained in his lungs.

Thoughts still waded through his murky mind.

Until he was dead, he was alive.

It was a ’grass-is-green’ statement, but that didn’t make the statement any less true.

Ash’s mind, already thinking about the game, wandered to the name.

’Rite of Ruin...’

A rite was a formal ceremony or solemn act with fixed customs and rules. Or it could simply refer to habits.

As for ruin...

’To destroy. Or describe what’s left after destruction.’

So then, what did it mean together? What was the reason for the game’s name?

’The rest of the world, or at least a lot of others, are going to transmigrate, right?’

Once the first month since Ash appeared passed.

’Is it referring to the victory condition?’

One would have to destroy and conquer to earn their right to go back to Earth?

’That’s definitely the leading theory.’

Ash wished he could laugh.

’This is where my mind ended up while falling to my death?’

’Hmm...’

All of a sudden, a blinding flash assaulted his eyes.

It was followed by another, then another.

The darkness around him flickered between each burst, and with every flash, the empty pressurelessness surrounding his body seemed to recede.

For a moment, Ash thought he’d finally passed and found himself in the afterlife.

But the space above him slowly took shape: a single, crystalline expanse stretching endlessly in every direction.

’Huh...’

Wind slammed into his body.

Only then did Ash realize he was no longer suspended within the ground. He was tumbling through open air, his remaining arm and leg drifting uselessly as the world rotated around him.

He twisted his torso, forcing himself to roll until the crystal sky settled above him. Then he craned his neck and looked beneath himself.

Below him was ice. A tundra. The same one he’d first found himself in. Off to his side was the gigantic mountain that resembled the volcano he’d been summoned on.

’I fell... out of the seal?’

That was a possibility.

But to answer that question, he’d need to survive. Thankfully, judging by the distant tundra slowly expanding beneath him, he had a good minute or so before impact.

His short olive hair whipping across his face, Ash steadied his rotation as much as he could, then examined his missing limbs. There, he noted that his flesh had formed into sealed stumps, stopping the bleeding in the truest sense.

Even further...

’The passive healing regrows limbs?!’

The flesh was slowly, very slowly, stretching out and forming upon itself, remaking his arm and leg.

Ash shifted his weight, angling his chest toward the tundra until he was falling face-first. The mountain remained to his right, while the endless white plain rushed closer beneath him.

Ash stared toward the ground and smiled.

’Cross... you really should’ve stuck with your original goal.’

Because now...

Now Cross was going to pay the price for forcing Ash’s ire.

Naked and falling from the sky, Ash did the only thing he could think of.

[You have equipped [Starter Bow]]

The crude curved wood formed in his remaining hand.

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